Question: Menu search

[vinsworldcom]

I see the new experimental menu search feature. Is the intent to make is something like:

https://github.com/peter-frentrup/NppMenuSearch

If so, I think this plugin could be the closest to "universal search" for Notepad++ - current tabs, files in directories and menu items. Much like the command palette in VS Code.

Cheers.

[young-developer]

@vinsworldcom It was initial idea but I use the plugin everyday and menu search is used really in rare cases. Lets keep this ticket open so we can get more feedback.

[molsonkiko]

I think one thing that's holding this feature back is the fact that the menu search feature currently does not search the name of the command. For example, I am reasonably familiar with command names, and I often wish I could just type IDM to restrict my search to the menu commands (since they all start with IDM).

I'm going to start working on improving the search of NavigateTo this evening. I plan to work on:

1. implementing glob syntax (e.g., foo**\**bar\baz.*)
2. logical OR of search terms (e.g., foo | bar searches for foo OR bar)
3. logical negation and grouping, e.g, baz !<foo | bar> would search for files that contain baz but NOT (foo or bar)

[vinsworldcom]

wish I could just type IDM to restrict my search to the menu commands (since they all start with IDM

Note that the end user does not see or know the IDM syntax, they just see the menu text as it appears in the menus. Using that text would be the ideal way to search. Example from NppMenuSearch:

Cheers.

[molsonkiko]

Note that the end user does not see or know the IDM syntax

In NavigateTo, the end user can. I'm not on a computer with Notepad++ installed right now, but for example try entering Python with menu command search enabled. The row with the command to turn on Python lexing shows the name of the command (IDM_LANG_PYTHON or something).

I can see arguments both ways. My recommendation (which I could implement) would be to add a user-configurable setting which would allow the user to search the name of the command rather than just the text that's shown in the menu.